Turtles and other critters

Critters and ponds go together. When we have a backyard wildlife habitat, we get the critters that come with it. Let's do the best we can do co-exist. You can just not invite most of these critters. The others we just have to live with.

Turtles will eat your water lilies. So will koi, crawfish, bass, perch or other lake fish. Raccoons and nutria will eat them as well. So will ducks and geese. I don't know about possums or muskrats, but I would not be surprised if they did.

Read all about ponds at Backyard Ponds with the Pondlady

Raccoons

It has always seemed strange to me that we build beautiful wildlife resorts in our yards and then we want to restrict the population. Most of us don't like raccoons to visit and it's true they can be destructive to plants and can kill fish.
Because we are taking the raccoon's habitats away every time we build a new house or a parking lot or a shopping center, they are doing what they know to do and finding a place to live and eat where they used to live, but can't anymore. And their only natural predator is us. So here we are wanting a 'gated community' in our yards and we took away the raccoons community. Whatever are we to do? There are have-a-heart traps that might work, but then you have a raccoon in a trap and must call the SPCA to come get it or you must release it somewhere far away where the raccoon will most probably die.

The best thing I have found is to make the pond occupants less desirable to the marauding raccoon. Plant asparagus fern, dwarf holly or other prickly things aouund the pond where the raccoon interstate highway leads to your pond. That has worked for me and for my clients throughout the years.